Mayor Who?

Sometimes it really hits me how different Los Angeles is from my hometown of Chicago. Did this week’s mayoral primary even register in the chatter at the local Starbucks? I paid a little attention to the race but I didn’t have a single conversation about it with Kendall or anyone I know, not even my usually opinionated friends. This could never happen in Chicago, at least not in the Chicago I grew up in where mayoral politics was a mass obsession on par with the thin/thick crust pizza debate and who was a better team, the Cubs or the White Sox (these allegiances often reflected strict north side/south side party lines). I don’t want to paint a picture that L.A. is drowning in apathy and I know there are activists here who live and breathe city politics, but I feel safe in saying that the political zeitgeist of this community doesn’t hold a candle to Chicago’s where the average six-year-old could probably name his precinct captain and alderman.

Not that Chicago’s version of democracy was always about choice. As far as I knew, Mayor Daley had a hold on the mayor’s office that made the Pope look like a transient. He was first elected mayor in 1955, four years before I was born, and stayed in office through six terms until his death on December 20, 1976 when I was a freshman in college. I remember the exact moment I found out he had died. I was on the Ravenswood El heading home after an endless day of Christmas job drudgery at my grandfather’s State Street clothing store. I was riding one of those rush hour trains where your nose is in someone’s armpit and your back is digging into the metal handle on someone’s Carson Pirie Scott shopping bag. I was thinking about how I would never, ever go into the family business when out of the corner of my eye I suddenly spotted the gigantic headline on someone’s copy of the Sun-Times: MAYOR DALEY DEAD. It took at least a minute for those words to register in my brain, and even then I couldn’t believe it. By the time I got off the train, everyone was buzzing about it. Some people were crying, some just looked dazed, and even people who loathed the mayor (and there were many) seemed terribly shaken up. The “end of an era” cliché was never more true than on that bitter cold day.

Mayor Daley had long been a polarizing figure in Chicago although he was largely supported by the city’s liberal Jews. I remember my parents saying how he “gave Kennedy the election” in 1960 but as far as they were concerned, that was a good use of his unbridled power. During the social unrest of the late 1960s, greater divisions started emerging in the living rooms of Chicago. The mixed feelings about Mayor Daley came to a head during the 1968 Democratic Convention. The whole country had reached the boiling point that summer—both Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy had been murdered and the deaths in Vietnam were mounting as fast as support for the war was disappearing. As the convention to nominate Hubert Humphrey got underway, war protesters from all over the nation began swarming into the city. Mayor Daley would have none of it. Instead of reasoning with the anti-war protesters (whose numbers included William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jean Genet, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, and Jerry Rubin) and allowing them a voice at the convention, Daley dispatched over 12,000 armed police officers and called in the Illinois National Guard and federal troops. Hundreds of people were injured in a series of bloody clashes, all recorded and played in living color on the nightly news. On the Wednesday of the convention, which we later learned was the most violent day, my father piled us into the family car and we headed for the center of action, Grant Park and South Michigan Avenue. I’m not sure what my parents were thinking—what was next, a road trip to Three Mile Island? I remember my father pointing out the floor of the Conrad Hilton Hotel that was Humphrey’s headquarters. Earlier that day fumes from the tear gas used by the police and the stink bombs thrown by the protesters had drifted into the hotel causing a brief evacuation. The normally pristine Grant Park looked like a tornado had passed through and as we got onto the outer drive my parents began one of the worst arguments I had ever heard up to that point. My father was supporting Mayor Daley’s actions and saying that he did what had to be done in the situation—that some of these protesters were a true menace. My mother screamed that Daley was a fascist pig and she couldn’t believe my father was defending the Gestapo-like violence. In retrospect, I think the moment when my mother angrily turned her head towards the passenger-side window marked the first step on the road to their divorce three years later.

My grandfather also sided with Mayor Daley. The following year he received this letter from the mayor, thanking him for his positive words about the police force “when so often we only receive adverse comments.” I wish I could find the picture I’ve seen of my grandfather with Mayor Daley—two patriarchal figures who had so much in common. They even looked alike, despite the fact that my grandfather was an orthodox Jew and you couldn’t get more Irish than Richard Daley. St. Patrick’s Day in Daley’s Chicago was a huge holiday. Do they still dye the Chicago River emerald green every year? Even after Daley died in 1976 we thought there would always be an Irish Catholic on the Chicago throne. How could there not be? It’s not like you’d ever see a Jewish or Protestant Pope!

Michael Bilandic was appointed mayor after Daley’s death and was elected in his own right the following year. He was defeated in the next election because of a four-letter word: SNOW. It was a brutal winter in 1979 and the city’s poor snow removal practices were exploited by Bilandic’s challenger Jane Byrne, who until the blizzard didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected. But Byrne won and became the first female mayor of Chicago and the first person to ever defeat the once invincible Democratic machine which had supported Bilandic. One of Byrne’s more memorable stunts was her 1980 move into Cabrini-Green, one of the most dangerous low-income housing projects in the country (and the location for the sitcom “Good Times”). She did call attention to the miserable conditions there but after three weeks she moved back into her luxury condo a few blocks away. Harold Washington became the first African-American mayor of Chicago in 1983, and showed signs that he might enjoy the longevity of Mayor Daley but he died in office at the beginning of his second term in 1987. Two years later, the Daley dynasty was reborn with election of Richard J. Daley’s son, Richard M. Daley. Following in his father's footsteps, Daley is currently on his fifth term in office. People who are graduating high school this year have never known another mayor.

Why is interest in the mayor so different in this city? Our mayors here seem more like figureheads. Of course we’ve had our share of colorful characters. Damien Marchessault was mayor of Los Angeles during the Civil War but his term was cut short when he committed suicide in the Council Room of Los Angeles City Hall. Where is CNN when you need them? Charles E. Sebastian became mayor in 1915 but was forced to resign when he was accused of beating a disabled man to death. He was also having an affair and letters to his mistress were published in the newspaper in which he called his wife the “Old Haybag.” Mayor George Cryer led the city for most of the 1920s. Problem was he also led an organized crime syndicate that ran gambling and prostitution rackets throughout southern California. Oy. I remember when L.A. mayors had real star power. Mayor Sam Yorty was a frequent guest on the Johnny Carson Show. Tom Bradley also had charisma, as did Richard Riordan even though I despised his politics. Riordan seemed to be losing it last year in a televised event at our main public library. A little girl asked him if he knew what her name meant in English and he inexplicably replied, “It means stupid, dirty girl,” and laughed. He later said the incident was a failed attempt at humor. I’ll say!

So why is the current race between Mayor James Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa such a snooze? I wonder if the May 17 runoff election will get as pathetic a turnout as this week’s primary. We’ve seen what happened with Schwarzenegger. I bet if George Clooney ran for Mayor of Los Angeles, he’d make Mayor Daley look like a has-been.

Comments

[Elaine Soloway]

Danny, really enjoyed this morning's post as I was a Press Aide to Mayor Jane Byrne. I remember well the day she moved into Cabrini Green -- it was a surprise to her Press Office (perhaps not to the chief). That time in City Hall was one of the most exciting in my career. Quite a rush accompanying the Mayor to ground-breakings, etc. She had a real love-hate relationship with the press. Ultimately, my short stature made me ill-prepared for handling our aggressive City Hall reporters, and because I could not fend them off, my outings with her grew fewer and fewer. Thanks for helping me recall those days.

[Danny]

Oh right, Elaine, I forgot about your Jane Byrne connection! I haven't heard anything about Jane Byrne in ages, whatever happened to her? I know that Bilandic and Washington are dead, being mayor of Chicago seems like a lethal profession unless you are a Daley!

Everyone should check out Elaine's great essay called "Standing Tall" that talks about her time with Jane Byrne.

[Frances]

All I want to say is how much I am digging your blog. I mean, there's lots of them out there in the blogosphere and to come across one so dadblamed sincere and searching, about the THINGS in the world, is a rare thing. My boyfriend sent me the link to your comments at Wil Wheaton on Wilco and that's how I found this, happy I did.

[The Angelino]

If you add the 1.5 million Angelino eligible voters who are not registered with the 1.5 million registered voters then your voter turnout drops to about 16 percent. This is shameful!

[Betsy Hailey]

Danny, I'm in awe of you! You bring new meaning to
living "an examined life"! I've never known anyone
who lived his own life so fully and consciously and
still was able to escape so completely into imagined
lives. I don't know how you manage to write such
full and fascinating blog essays every day, work as
hard as you do and still see every interesting movie
and play in town -- and even read books for pleasure.
And still have time for dinner with your mother-in-law
and her friends (who are among your biggest fans).